Monday, November 24, 2008

It's Time to Brainstorm!

Last Thursday Shirley Karr blogged about Plotting Retreats. Shirley and her friends get together for a weekend and talk about their new books, asking “what if” questions and planning out their GMC and HEA. When I brainstorm with my writer friend, Caroline Fyffe, we quickly explain what our newest book is about. Usually we already have the first few scenes figured out but then we ask one another, “What comes next?” For instance the book she is working on is a western historical so we brainstormed all the things that could go wrong on the trail to their destination: Meet with Indians, Snake bites, Lose all their water, They get lost, Someone gets sick, Bad guys come, etc.

See! It’s easy. Anything goes. Nothing’s too crazy. Who wants to give it a try? Give me a paragraph setting up your book. Tell us where you’re at and where you want to go and we can all throw out Next Scene Ideas. There’s nothing better than having a long list of possibilities!

I will start. I’m thinking about writing a YA and the new girl at school is a freshman in high school. What special power does she have? What family problems does she have? What boy will she hook up with? Okay, throw out some ideas! Help Me or give me one of your own!

Hi,I’m writing a YA. Set in current/future. Cell phone, internet and other stuff exist but she live in non-religion socialty. She and her father are Christians who secretly help others discover Christ. I just wrote the scene where the guards arrest her father for what they are doing. For some reason they don’t arrest my MC. I need some ideas for what can go wrong or right on her journey to save her father. The guy she hates but secretly might like (think Darcy and Elisabeth) is helping her.Thanks, Annie

Theresa – I LOVE this idea of brainstorming help, but then I love to brainstorm. “g” We should do this more often.

Mo – love your YA stories. Get suggestion from Theresa.

Annie –

Okay, I’m thinking this might be an Inspy and, if so, Theresa has given you a good problem/bad problem where they are thrown together – which has all sorts of complications since the guy and girl won’t be able to stay alone together if it IS an Inspy so that might mean introducing a wild card type character. Someone who will cause as many problems as be helpful.

As for the journey to save her father…*** Maybe she has to go to the one person she either is terrified of or never wanted to see again to be a character witness for her father. Or this person could be the one person her father forbid her to ever see/meet, but would not tell her why. Only that this person was dangerous/crazy/a threat of some kind – but when she meets this person instead of answers she faces more questions. *** One question that would drive some of the situations is “what is the ticking clock”? Yes, she wants to save her father, but pushing that another step up would be why she has to save him NOW? In other words, if he’s going to be in jail (or the equivalent of in a future world) for a while that doesn’t sound so bad. But if there has been a recent major crisis/incident that is blamed on the religious sector then maybe they just passed a rule/law that anyone they found associated with this religious group is basically “guilty by association” and therefore subject to an expedited court review/hearing that could have him sent off planet or to another country or executed (because people had died in the incident) then TIME would be a big factor. And in that example (even though it’s not your story this might jog some ideas), maybe the government was behind the incident because the religious group is becoming so strong it threatens the government. So then the MC – whose father had not been involved in any way – is forced to find the truth behind the incident to prove her father’s innocence. In doing so, she would face a lot of problems, because another force would be working just as hard to keep her from finding out the truth.

The government could have spies who have infiltrated the religious sector so when she finally got a break and was told somewhere to go to talk to someone who could help her she would be walking into a trap. Or her love interest could get the lead and get captured and that might lead her closer to the truth.

In other words, the complications will come from her goals and the obstacles thrown in the way.

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